The Unlikely Spy

"In wartime," Winston Churchill wrote, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." For Britain's counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agents imaginable - including a history professor named Alfred Vicary.

The Black Widow

Gabriel Allon, the art restorer, spy, and assassin described as the most compelling fictional creation "since Ian Fleming put down his martini and invented James Bond" (Rocky Mountain News), is poised to become the chief of Israel's secret intelligence service. But on the eve of his promotion, events conspire to lure him into the field for one final operation. ISIS has detonated a massive bomb in the Marais district of Paris, and a desperate French government wants Gabriel to eliminate the man responsible before he can strike again.

American Assassin

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorists worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world . . . and then tragedy struck.

No Man's Land: John Puller Series

John Puller's mother disappeared nearly 30 years ago. Despite an intensive search and investigation, she was never seen again. But new allegations have come to light suggesting that Puller's father - now suffering from dementia and living in a VA hospital - may have murdered his wife. Puller is officially barred from working on the case and faces a potential court-martial if he disobeys the order, but he knows he can't sit this investigation out.

First Strike: A Thriller

Deep within the Pentagon, a covert multibillion arms-for-influence program was created. The objective was to protect the United States and its allies from terrorist acts by secretly enabling a handpicked man to emerge as the most powerful leader in the Middle East. But the charismatic Tristan Nazir double-crosses America, twisting the program for his own violent ends to create ISIS. Now America is at great risk.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye: A Harry Bosch Novel, Book 21

Harry Bosch is California's newest private investigator. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't have an office, and he's picky about who he works for, but it doesn't matter. His chops from 30 years with the LAPD speak for themselves. Soon one of Southern California's biggest moguls comes calling. The reclusive billionaire has less than six months to live and a lifetime of regrets. He hires Bosch to find out whether he has an heir.

Situation Room: A Luke Stone Thriller, Book 3

A cyberattack on an obscure US dam leaves thousands dead and the government wondering who attacked it, and why. When they realize it is just the tip of the iceberg - and that the safety of all of America is at stake - the president has no choice but to call in Luke Stone.

The Whistler

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption. But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business with a new identity. He now goes by the name Greg Myers, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined.

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel, Book 21

It's 1996, and Reacher is still in the army. In the morning they give him a medal, and in the afternoon they send him back to school. That night he's off the grid. Out of sight, out of mind. Two other men are in the classroom - an FBI agent and a CIA analyst. Each is a first-rate operator, each is fresh off a big win, and each is wondering what the hell they are doing there. Then they find out: A jihadist sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has received an unexpected visitor - a Saudi courier seeking safe haven while waiting to rendezvous with persons unknown.

Memory Man

Amos Decker's life changed forever - twice. The first time was on the gridiron. A big, towering athlete, he was the only person from his hometown of Burlington ever to go pro. But his career ended before it had a chance to begin. On his very first play, a violent helmet-to-helmet collision knocked him off the field for good and left him with an improbable side effect - he can never forget anything.

Oath of Office: A Luke Stone Thriller, Book 2

A biological agent is stolen from a biocontainment lab. Weaponized, it could kill millions, and a desperate national hunt ensues to catch the terrorists before it is too late. Luke Stone, head of an elite FBI department, with his own family still in jeopardy, has vowed to walk away - but when the new president, barely sworn in, calls him, he can't turn his back on her. Shocking devastation follows, winding its way all the way to the president, who finds her own family in jeopardy.

The Gray Man

Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man - a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there's no gray area between killing for a living-and killing to stay alive.

Ghost Sniper: A Sniper Elite Novel

Bob Pope, the director of an American secret intelligence antiterrorist program, loses contact with his most trusted operative, navy master chief Gil Shannon, fearing him dead when a mission to take out a Swiss banker who is channeling funds to Muslim extremists goes awry. But when an American politician and her convoy are assassinated in Mexico City by the Ghost Sniper - an American ex-military gunman for hire employed by Mexico's most ruthless drug cartel - Pope must turn to retired Navy SEAL Daniel Crosswhite and the newest Sniper Elite hero.

Friendly Fire

It begins with a shocking act of vengeance. Barista Ethan Falk chases a customer into the parking lot and kills him. He tells police that years ago, the older man abducted and tortured him. Then Ethan's story takes an even stranger turn: He says he was rescued by a guy named Scorpion. Of course there is no record of either the kidnapping or the rescue, because Scorpion - Jonathan Grave - operates outside the law and leaves no evidence.

Any Means Necessary: A Luke Stone Thriller, Book 1

When nuclear waste is stolen by jihadists in the middle of the night from an unguarded New York City hospital, the police, in a frantic race against time, call in the FBI. Luke Stone, head of an elite, secretive department within the FBI, is the only man they can turn to. Luke realizes right away that the terrorists' aim is to create a dirty bomb, that they seek a high-value target, and that they will hit it within 48 hours.

Tier One

John Dempsey's life - as an elite Tier One Navy SEAL named Jack Kemper - is over. A devastating terrorist action catapults him from a world of moral certainty and decisive orders into the shadowy realm of espionage, where ambiguity is the only rule. His new mission: hunt down those responsible for the greatest tragedy in the history of the US Special Ops and bring them to justice.

Escape Clause: A Virgil Flowers Novel, Book 9

The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large and very rare Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they've been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others - as Virgil is about to find out.

Home: Myron Bolitar Series, Book 11

A decade ago, kidnappers grabbed two boys from wealthy families and demanded ransom, then went silent. No trace of the boys ever surfaced. For 10 years their families have been left with nothing but painful memories and a quiet desperation for the day that has finally, miraculously arrived: Myron Bolitar and his friend Win believe they have located one of the boys, now a teenager. Where has he been for 10 years, and what does he know about the day, more than half a life ago, when he was taken?

Ricki says:"I have so missed Myron and Win and now they are back. Yeah"

Pushing Brilliance

Framed for murder and on the run, former Olympic biathlete Kyle Achilles is also in the crosshairs of assassins' guns. Why? He has no idea. He's fighting blind against two master strategists and one extraordinary invention - known as Brillyanc. Achilles' only ally is the other prime suspect, a beautiful Russian mathematician who is either the best or worst person to ever enter his life. Katya was engaged to Achilles' brother - before he died.

Orphan X

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He's also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets - i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X. Evan broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear.

Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Enigma

On the eve of Russian general Boris Karpov's wedding, Jason Bourne receives an enigmatic message from his old friend and fellow spymaster. In Moscow, what should be a joyous occasion turns bloody and lethal. Now Bourne is the only one who can decipher Karpov's cryptogram. He discovers that Karpov has betrayed his sovereign to warn Bourne of a crippling disaster about to be visited on the world. Bourne has only four days to discover the nature of the disaster and stop it.

A Time to Die: Victor the Assassin, Book 6

Now that professional assassin Victor is indentured to British Intelligence, he is tasked with eliminating the worst of the worst. One such man is Milan Rados, a former Serbian paramilitary commander wanted for war crimes and now head of an organized criminal network in Belgrade. He has escaped justice once already, so it's Victor's job to take the justice to him.

Without Remorse

His work for the CIA is brilliant, cold-blooded, and efficient, but who is he? In a harrowing tour de force, phenomenally best-selling author Tom Clancy shows how an ordinary man named John Kelly crossed the lines of justice and morality to become the CIA legend known as Mr. Clark. It is an unforgettable journey into the heart of darkness, without mercy - without remorse.

Publisher's Summary

When a commercial airliner is blown out of the sky off the East Coast, the CIA scrambles to find the perpetrators. A body is discovered near the crash site with three bullets to the face: the calling card of a shadowy international assassin. Only agent Michael Osbourne has seen the markings before - on a woman he once loved.

Now, it's personal for Osbourne. Consumed by his dark obsession with the assassin, he's willing to risk his family, his career, and his life - to settle a score...

What the Critics Say

"The prose is slick, and readers will find themselves racing through these pages as the body count grows and the conclusion nears. The Mark of the Assassin is a worthy effort from a rising star." (Amazon.com review)

If you like international espionage then this book will not disapoint you. Among the layers of bad guys the good ones seem like they are truly up against it and in the form of a good suspense novel the outcome is uncertain until the very end, and even then......... no plot spoilers here.
Daniel Silva is a good writer and this is one of his best works. Good story, Good naration.

"The Mark of the Assassin," published back in 1998, spookily augured a real event that occurred three years 𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧: on 09/11/01. Here, Daniel Silva -- in only his second novel -- is already hitting his stride, showing his potential for excellent writing, plotting, and insight. Fans of his popular Gabriel Allon series will see in "The Mark of the Assassin" the emergence of the future Gabriel Allon character -- in the person of Jean-Paul Delaroche, international assassin and accomplished artist -- as well as several other characters that will appear in the Gabriel Allon series: most notably Ari Shamron (director of Israel's Mosad), Adrian Carter (director of the C.I.A.'s Counter-Terrorism Task Force), and Graham Seymour (England's MI6 spymaster). Fans of the 9/11 conspiracy theory will appreciate Silva's Society for International Development and Cooperation -- consisting of "rogue intelligence officers, politicians, arms merchants, mercenaries, drug lords, international crime organizations, and powerful business moguls" -- who secretly engineer a deadly terrorist attack on American soil to enrich their own agendas. Sound familiar? I don't doubt that such an organization may, in fact, exist on this planet, secretly manipulating events that profoundly affect all of us little people to its own ends. (Bilderberg Group, anyone?)

I have just finished listening to Silva's entire oeuvre in chronological order -- from "The Unlikely Spy" to "The English Girl" -- with great enjoyment, appreciating his evolution as an author along the way. In particular, I admire his growing encyclopedic knowledge of international affairs and behind-the-scenes political machinations. Also -- of interest to female listeners -- I have witnessed a subtle, but noticeable, evolution in Silva's feminist awareness. Whereas in Silva's early works -- including "The Mark of the Assassin" -- you will see the female characters portrayed as unlikeable, irritable, shrill, dependent, possessive harridans, in later novels the female characters begin developing into more admirable women. I also appreciate the fact that, although Silva necessarily includes the obligatory sex scenes in his novels, he makes them mercifully brief and un-explicit, more so with each novel.

Regarding the narrator, Christopher Lane, I subtracted a star from his rating, only because of an odd, overly nonchalant inflection that he adopted for the "bad guys" in this audiobook. Otherwise, I liked his reading of "The Mark of the Assassin." He has a nice voice, and distinguishes the characters from one another pretty well.

In summary, I highly recommend "The Mark of the Assassin" to most thriller lovers; although I admit that it may not suit everybody's tastes. In general, if you like your thrillers with intelligent, complex plots, with a bit of gratuitous cynicism, then I think that you will enjoy all of Daniel Silva's novels. By the way: "The Marching Season" -- the novel which immediately follows "The Mark of the Assassin" -- picks up where its predecessor left off, effectively continuing the story. So, if you end up enjoying "The Mark of the Assassin," I would suggest purchasing "The Marching Season" next, in order to hear the rest of the story.

I enjoyed every portion of this book. The author gets right to the point of the plot and quickly identifies and developes his characters very well. This was my first book by Silva but will not be my last. I would have rated this a 5 but the narrator, although good with the voices, had a very bad habit of not pausing when switching conversations. He would move from a conversation between two people to a conversation between two different people with virtually no pause. It would take you a few moments to discover the switch. This was very irritating and until you get used to it will detract from the book.

Yes, I would recommend this audiobook to a friend because it may arouse in that friend an understanding of why the USA has to be fighting on foreign soil. We, as a nation, cannot allow our nation to be undermined or open to destruction.

What other book might you compare The Mark of the Assassin to and why?

I might compare The Mark of the Assassin to Outlaw Platoon because when these men and women were met by their enemies, it was only then, that they knew the hatred and fury between them would propel one or the other to be the winner. Each would fight to their death for what they believed in. The assassin's belief was money and a lot of it. The Outlaw Platoon fought from a mountain-valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier for the USA.

Have you listened to any of Christopher Lane’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, I have listened to Christopher Lane's other performances before and this one compares to the other's as another excellent read. He is a narrator who is a joy to listen to. He had read books of the same genre. There are many variations of of emotions that he does very well. Lane has the capability to present to the listener a real man or woman with a personality. You know as you're reading, who the person is being characterized by Lane. Be sure to listen to a book read by Christopher Lane, you will not be disappointed.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yes, I did have an extreme reaction to this book. Elizabeth Osbourne and her husband were having difficulties conceiving. The appointment, when Elizabeth and Michael would be told what the problem was and who had the problem, Michael did not go to the appointment as expected. Elizabeth was given the answer, by herself, that the problem was with her and not Michael.

Any additional comments?

The Mark of the Assassin is an edge of your seat listen. There are many encounters between the enemies, each trying to kill the other. Michael Osbourne was not working for money but for his country, the USA. The assassin was a mercenary. The narration is a pleasurable listen as I've stated above. The character's have been well developed. You will be able to formulate a personality for the character's. The book is filled with action and suspense. The book continues to explain why we, as American's, have to fight for our country.

Not into spy thrillers,but this is one you can not stop listening to.This was in the top 5 books I have listened to.The only con was sometimes he would get bogged down in superficial details,if it was not for that it would have been a 5

It said copyright 2003 so this SHOULD have been under post 9/11 thought and world events. However many terrorist groups such as the IRA, etc. are mentioned often. Many of these groups, agencies etc. have been out of business or disbanded or remade since the 90s! This book WAS NOT completely written post 9/11 and I normally NEVER read the ones from the 80s or 90s, because so much has changed. Surveillance technology etc. also seems dated as do our enemies. The story is fine as is the narrator.

I would have enjoyed this story more without the often strained accents applied to many of the characters. It robs the imagination to hear exaggerated speech patterns that are ill fitting and limiting to a reader's enjoyment.

The characters are complex, i often forgot who was who except for the main characters, but i enjoyed the story and it was solid from beginning to end. I didn't much care for Mrs Osbourne, she was a bit whiny and a touch annoying at times. The ending was fitting and i would like see how things are finally ended in a sequel.